Trivia

S.T. Joshi points to this film as an inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's novel "The Shadow Out of Time": "Lovecraft saw this film four times in late 1933; its portrayal of a man of the 20th century who somehow merges his personality with that of his 18th-century ancestor was clearly something that fired Lovecraft's imagination, since he had written a story on this very theme himself--the then unpublished "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (1927)." Lovecraft called the film "the most weirdly perfect embodiment of my own moods and pseudo-memories that I have ever seen--for all my life I have felt as if I might wake up out of this dream of an idiotic Victorian age and insane jazz age into the sane reality of 1760 or 1770 or 1780." Lovecraft noted some conceptual problems in this film's depiction of time travel, and felt that he had "eliminated these flaws in his masterful novella of mind-exchange over time."

The original play, "Berkeley Square," opened in London in 1928, starring Leslie Howard. The Broadway production opened at the Lyceum Theater on November 4, 1929, also starring Howard. It ran for 229 performances, and was followed by a national tour. Howard and Valerie Taylor recreated their stage roles for the film version.

Although Irene Browne (Lady Ann Pettigrew) played the mother of Colin Keith-Johnston (Tom Pettigrew), Valerie Taylor (Kate Pettigrew) and Heather Angel (Helen Pettigrew), she was only three months older than Keith-Johnston, six years older than Taylor and 12 years older than Angel in real life.